


a heart of stone, a smoking gun

by tosca1390



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:58:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She has never been frightened of the dark.</i> Luther AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a heart of stone, a smoking gun

*

People always say the nights are the worst. Rukia doesn’t agree. 

It’s the days that haunt her. The lack of purpose in her steps, the mandated therapy, the moving trucks moving between her new apartment and the house that used to be theirs but is just Hitsugaya’s, now. She misses the heft of the gun at her hip, the weight of her badge in her palm and her jacket pocket. 

The days, sunlight bright and sharp against the rising skyline, are empty for her. It’s the nights where she finds relief, in sleep, in mindless dreams. She relives the fall, the gasp, the breath there, the crouch of her knees again the dirt, the sound of the girl’s breaths over the reedy phone connection; when she wakes up, for a moment, she thinks it’s all the same. The sun’s changes and the seasons passing remind her that she can’t, she can’t go back. 

The nights are a relief. She has never been frightened of the dark. 

*

“Have they found for you yet?” 

Rukia hums softly, fingers light on her teacup. It’s strange to sit in a kitchen she used to cook in sometimes with her ex-husband, late winter sunlight creeping across the white tile floors. There is the touch of another woman in the house already; Hitsugaya was never one to waste time, she thinks with a sharp curl of her mouth. 

“You assume they will,” she says to him, glancing out of the corner of her eye towards the hall, the front door. Her last box of belongings waits for her, beckoning; she is ready to be done. 

Hitsugaya doesn’t blink, his face placid and smooth. He sits up straight, his suit perfectly creased. She shifts, feeling the creak of her leather jacket at the crook of her elbows. “You’re an excellent detective, Rukia. You wouldn’t have done it on purpose,” he says calmly. 

“That’s sweet of you,” she drawls, tipping her head back. Her bangs fall across her eyes, heavy and still damp from her shower earlier. 

“You know what I mean,” he says quietly, light eyes pinning her. “He fell.”

She wets her lips, looking into the light ocher of the tea. “I should have a decision soon.”

“Good. You need to be working,” he says crisply. 

A dry sort of laugh rattles out of her throat. “True. It’s all I know how to do.”

He clears his throat. “I didn’t say that.”

“I know,” she murmurs, fluttering a hand in the air. Her gaze fixes on the apron hanging from a hook near the sink in the kitchen; bright pink and red flowers sear into her eyes. “Who is she?” she asks at last. 

Then, Hitsugaya smirks. It’s small, but she knows it well enough. “Jealous?”

“Curious,” she says evenly, and it’s true. Jealousy plays no part in any of her feelings for this house, this former life. She feels as if she’s moved beyond it and past it, into some other plane he can’t touch. Sometimes, in the harsh press of daylight, she isn’t sure anyone can touch her now. 

He watches her carefully for a long moment. “Her name is Orihime. She’s a paralegal at the firm.”

Rukia wets her lips, biting the inside of her lip. “You look happy,” she says quietly. 

He smiles; it looks strange to her, on his mouth. “I am.”

Her fingers push at her teacup. “I’m glad.”

What she doesn’t say: _I’m glad it’s not my responsibility anymore._

*

Urahara slides her badge, silver and stark and edged in black, across the mess of his desk. It catches on papers and his stapler and the remnants of lunch from yesterday. His fingers are pale against it. A mess of blonde hair falls across his brow, shadowing his gaze. 

“Here,” he says lazily. 

Rukia sits with her hands tucked in her lap. The shades are drawn down over the windows overlooking the desks in the pit, but she can hear the buzz of the floor outside of the office, the rise and fall of voices. Those are her colleagues, but she feels separate, a galaxy away. Her palms itch as she flexes her hands over her thighs. 

“I’m back?” she asks. 

Urahara shrugs, leaning back in his chair. His fingers steeple over his chest. “For the most part. Another month’s observation, but you can get back out into investigations. I need you to train the rooks.”

 

She reaches for the badge at last. “Thanks,” she murmurs. 

“It was a close thing,” he drawls. “And if Ichimaru wakes up –“

“Do you think I’m lying?” she asks dryly. 

He shrugs. “I don’t. But the guy’s in a coma.”

“He is a murderer. Do we trust the word of murderers more than those of detectives now?” she says, the skin of her throat flushing. 

“I’m not trying to piss you off, Kuchiki,” he says. There’s a lightness to his tone, but a dark caution to his gaze. “I’m just warning you.”

Urahara is ease and casualness for the most part; it’s a strange combination of lethargy and subtle manipulation and scheming that has worked for him so far; but his intensity when directed and focused is frightening. She’s glad to have him on her side. 

“Thanks,” she says again, and rises. The badge she clips to her belt. Her gun waits for her in her desk drawer. 

The phone ringing on his desk cuts through the uneasy silence. She keeps her gaze steady as he answers, murmuring into the phone. Flickers of memories seep through her, dark shadows of woods and rain and an old partner long gone who didn’t believe – 

She blinks, wetting her lips in the present. Urahara sets down the phone, mouth set grimly. 

“Triple homicide just called in. Residential apartment complex ten minutes west of here, near the riverbank. Take the new kid, Karin. Ise-san’s there now,” he says, eyes heavy as he watches her. “Can you handle that, Kuchiki?”

“Of course I can,” she murmurs, nodding before she turns and slips out of his office. There’s a heavy taste on her tongue, brittle and like blood. 

*

“How long have you worked for our department?” Rukia asks Karin as they get out of the sedan. Karin drives; Rukia has never liked the feel of a steering wheel in her palms. She prefers motorcycles, trains, flying; anything but cars. 

Her second therapist had said it was because of her sister’s death. Rukia didn’t put much stock in that. The past is unchangeable. 

Karin, lithe and dark-haired, with serious eyes, shuts the car door and smoothes her navy blazer down over her middle. Rukia watches coolly as she tips her head back, glancing up to the very top of the apartment building. 

“Two months. This is my first multiple homicide though,” Karin says at last. She is restrained and wry, but Rukia can sense the tender spots in her, the chinks in her defensive armor. There is a story here, she knows. 

Rukia has never been one to push though. 

“You’re in for it, then,” Rukia murmurs as they walk into the lobby. The doorman is flanked by two regular uniformed officers, shaken and pale. The air is cool, climate-controlled, sterile; glass walls let all the early spring sunlight in, glassy streaks of refracted light on the marble floors. 

“What do you think of this place?” she asks after a moment, as they wait at the stainless steel elevators. 

Karin glances around, her short hair falling at the nape of her neck. “It’s nice. Too rich for my blood,” she says flatly. 

“Yeah,” Rukia murmurs, her fingertips easy on the leather case of her badge at her hip. “And yet, a triple homicide. Here.”

“Murder can happen anywhere,” Karin says, voice dry. 

The elevator slides open before them, silent and careful and clean. Rukia steps in, and waits for Karin. 

“Yes, it can. But the where is still important,” she says as the doors slide shut. She pushes the button for floor ten, and they’re off. 

Nanao is waiting for them at the front door of the apartment. 

“Two women, one aged about sixteen, the other around forty, we think,” she says, all business. But her hand brushes Rukia’s elbow as they linger in the corridor, and Rukia can’t help but smile. It’s nice to be back with friends. 

“And the third?” Karin asks patiently. 

“The owner of the apartment. Last name Fisher. He’s apparently an American businessman who splits his time between New York City and Tokyo,” Nanao says, flipping through her notebook. “Nasty killing, too. Methodical but bloody – well, you’ll see.”

Rukia’s gaze moves past their shoulders towards the end of the hallway, where two uniforms wait with a tall bright-haired man in a white doctor’s coat. As if he can hear her watching him, his gaze lifts to hers. 

He smiles slightly. A shiver curls through her. 

“Who is that?” she asks after a moment. Her fingers curl at the cuffs of her leather jacket. 

“Ichigo Kurosaki. He’s the upstairs neighbor who called it in. Don’t worry, I’m bringing him down to the station,” Nanao says lightly. 

“Not all of us have been on vacation, Kuchiki. We know how to do our jobs without you,” comes a smooth dark voice from behind Nanao. A tall shadow falls over the three women. 

Rukia wets her lips and tilts her head back. “Aizen-sama,” she murmurs, bowing her head slightly. 

The older detective nods curtly, a strange smile on his mouth. Dark waves of hair fall across his brow. “Nice to see you back, Kuchiki-san.”

“I’m sure it is,” she says coolly. 

Rolling her eyes, Nanao pulls at Rukia’s elbow. “Come inside. Aizen will take Kurosaki down to the station.”

“Don’t question him,” Rukia says sharply as they move across the threshold of the apartment. 

Aizen’s lips curl upwards, a cruel little smile. “How could I ever dream of stealing your witness and your case, Kuchiki-san?”

She sets her jaw as he disappears down the hall, to collect her one witness. Nanao’s fingers curl into her elbow and pull her into the apartment, and for a moment, the smell and thickness of the blood distracts her from the hall, from the men she doesn’t know what to do with. 

“Christ,” Karin murmurs from next to her. 

The living room is swathed in clear plastic sheets from wall to wall, covering the furniture. The younger of the two women is strewn across the protected hardwood floors, legs spread and skirt over her hips. Her eyes are mercifully closed though she died with her mouth wide open. Dark red hair falls over her bare shoulders and breasts. Her throat is cut open, her breasts slashed. Already she is pale and cool to the touch, as Rukia kneels next to her. 

“Time of death is about an hour ago for Fisher,” Nanao says as Rukia moves to the older woman, who looks as if she could be the younger girl’s mother. She sits upright on the couch, fully clothed and bound with plastic ties at the wrists and ankles. There is no blood. 

“Karin,” Rukia says after a moment, as Nanao retreats into the kitchen. “What do you see?”

Karin is quiet for a moment. Her fingers do not tremble on her pencil and notepad. She kneels between the couch and the dead girl on the floor, the plastic crinkling under her feet. “It’s planned,” she says at last. 

Rukia smiles slightly, straightening. “Looks like it. But for who?”

The older woman has been suffocated; she has Karin make a note before they move into the sparse white granite and tile kitchen, stained in blood. 

Fisher, the tall American businessman, is in pieces. His head sits in the sink, his hands on the stove. The rest of his body is seated at the kitchen table, as if waiting for a meal. Blood is everywhere, on the walls, on the floors. Next to her, Karin coughs, clears her throat.

Rukia hums, and tiptoes around the blood. As pictures are taken, she touches gloved fingertips to the clean severed marks at the neck. “An hour, you think?” she asks Nanao. 

“That’s what the medical examiner said,” Nanao says. 

“The women have been dead for much longer. At least three to six hours. Why space it out?” she murmurs to herself. 

“The perp is a sick bastard?” Karin mutters. 

“Maybe. Or there are two different crimes going on here,” Rukia murmurs. “The head in the sink, the hands on the stove – they mean something. The women were part of a sexual power trip, perhaps. But this – this is ritualistic. It’s ceremonial. It’s revenge.”

The kitchen is quiet but for the shutter and click of the cameras, the slow murmurs of the uniforms. Rukia strips her hands of her gloves and drops them into the trash. “I want everything on Kurosaki, and on Fisher. And, I want crime patterns around them, with each move, particularly aimed at women,” she says to Karin before she stalks back out into the living room to look around in more detail. 

It’s strange, but it feels like home.

*

Ichigo Kurosaki has been waiting for four hours in a silent and solitary interrogation room before Rukia Kuchiki first steps in and exchanges words with him. 

By that time, she is armed with knowledge; he is a doctor at Jikei University Hospital, specializing in emergency and trauma services; he is originally from Karakura Town; he made some trouble as a delinquent in secondary school, but seems to be reformed now; he is single, a loner, not much for friends or company. When he was seven, his mother was kidnapped in front of him, and found raped and violently murdered. 

That sticks with a person. Rukia knows that best of all. 

She also has a much better picture of Grant Fisher, the American businessman who apparently enjoyed sexually assaulting women who then disappeared in both Japan and New York City. And now, she has to wonder, with Fisher placed in and around Karakura Town eighteen years ago, just at the time of Masaki Kurosaki’s murder, just how straight and narrow Kurosaki really is. 

“Sorry to make you wait,” she says as she opens the door. 

Kurosaki sits stock-still, his forearms easy on the metal table. The room is windowless, the air overwarm, but he is nothing but ease and casual nonchalance. The tips of his fingers are steady but his eyes are wide. She can’t read the dark amber of his gaze. 

“I don’t think you are, Detective,” he says at last, a low drawl. 

She sits in front of him, straight-backed and unsmiling. She knows Karin, Aizen Urahara, she knows they are all watching. They have told her for the last hour that there’s no hard proof, that the murder weapon (a meat cleaver, appropriately enough) used on Fisher is clean, that the knife used on the young victim (Rangiku is her first name, she thinks she remembers that from hours ago) only has Fisher’s fingerprints, that it fits the crime patters that follow Fisher from country to country. 

They have told her all of this, but she can’t shake it, the taste of vengeance she has every time she meets Kurosaki’s gaze. She _knows_. 

“Detective Ise says you called in a disturbance. You live one floor directly above Mr. Fisher, don’t you?” she asks after a moment. 

“I do. I heard screams, things out of the normal scope of activity. I was concerned, so I called the police. As concerned citizens do,” he says with a shrug. Starkly bright hair falls loose across his brow. 

“Admirable of you,” she murmurs. 

“Do you really think so?” he drawls. 

She meets his gaze across the table. Her fingers curl at her lap. There’s a strange sensation of knowing, of instinct with him. “Why did you come downstairs?”

“I heard the police knocking down the door. I felt compelled by curiosity. Others of our neighbors came to see as well,” he says. “Crimes like this are rare in our building.”

Wetting her lips, she tilts her head back slightly. “Did you know Mr. Fisher well?” she asks. 

Kurosaki smiles. She knows, she knows it’s a lie. “No. Not at all.”

It continues on like this for over two hours. She pulls and wheedles and curls and smiles, the rust peeling off of her reflexes and instincts as he takes it, takes all of it. He is controlled and intractable and sharp-tongued and irritating and _frustrating_.

She hates admitting it, but it’s _fun_. She has always liked a challenge, and the men in her life have never given her enough of them. 

“Mr. Fisher was in Karakura Town in the week your mother was raped and murdered,” she says after a long still silence of watching him, of him watching her. Now, as she’s tired, she sharpens, turns too blunt to be ignored and dallied over. 

The stretch and tone of his shoulders, his arms change. Kurosaki tilts his head, eyes darkening. Suddenly, she can see the strength there, the press and sharpness of his mouth. His hands flatten on the table top. 

_Gotcha_ , she thinks. 

“What does that have to do with anything, Rukia?” he asks. 

His casual use of her name startles her. A flush curls at her throat. 

“I’m only commenting on the convenience of it all.”

“Death is never convenient,” he says, voice very low. “My mother’s certainly wasn’t.”

She wets her lips, leaning in across the table. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?” he asks coolly. 

“Given what we know now of Mr. Fisher, I imagine it’s not hard to picture him as your mother’s assailant,” she says. 

“How clever of you all to figure that out nearly twenty years after the fact,” he says flatly. 

“How long did it take you to figure it out?” she asks softly. 

Kurosaki’s mouth curls. His hands relax and settle back from the table top to his lap. “Ah. You’re implying that I killed Mr. Fisher.”

“Did I say that?” she asks, wide-eyed. 

In the fluorescent-lit room, the sharp angles of his face are in stark relief. He leans in across the table, mouth a thin line. “Do you have any proof to present to me?”

She straightens, bristling. “No,” she says at last, biting it out. “But there are gut things that you know, Kurosaki-san.”

He watches her, eyes dark and heavy on her face. “Yes. Yes there are,” he murmurs. 

Then he leans back, stretching out along the length of his chair. His feet nudge hers underneath the table, and she jumps. The flush is hot on her cheeks. 

“If you’re asking whether I was suspicious of the man, then certainly, I was. But unless you are going to bring something other than gut instinct and circumstantial thoughts to the table concerning whether I, a doctor, murdered the man, I have to wonder whether there’s anything else I can do for you, Rukia,” he says at last. 

They watch each other for a long moment, the air thick between them. Finally, stomach heavy, she shakes her head and rises. 

“I’ll have someone show you out,” she murmurs, moving for the door. 

“This was fun, though,” he calls after her. “We should do it again sometime.” 

His voice haunts her as she watches Nanao escort him from the building. Her fingers curl and itch at her palms. 

*

Two weeks go by. Ichigo Kurosaki doesn’t leave her mind. 

The Fisher case remains open, unsolvable. Urahara waves off her requests to dig deeper into Kurosaki, saying she needs to apply herself to new cases, to cases with leads. Aizen always seems a breath and a laugh away from pushing her down the stairs, and even Nanao watches her askance. 

Rukia keeps her file on him, though. She reads it before bed, instead of sleeping. She soaks him in through the paper and the text and tries to place it all next to the coolly vengeful man in her interrogation room from weeks ago. It’s too hard of a puzzle and an edge to push together. 

Still, she thinks if she were ever to kill someone, she would do it nearly as well as he has ( _allegedly_ , she can hear him adding in her mind, _allegedly_ ). 

When she leaves the station too late on a Wednesday night, she’s startled to find him waiting there at the front door, sitting against a motorcycle in a pool of yellow streetlight. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks as she approaches, alone. In her mind she thinks of train schedules, of a long late walk home. Nanao tries to insist on her purchasing a car, but Rukia can’t bring herself to do it, with memories of smoking metal and a sister and a brother-in-law dead and lost to her, the scar at her sternum from near misses. Cars will never be an option for her. 

Kurosaki shrugs, arms crossed over his chest. “How’s your case coming?”

“You came to taunt me,” she says flatly. 

“I came to see you, Rukia,” he says with a smile. 

She can feel the flush on her cheeks; she is thankful for the dark. “You really shouldn’t be here.”

“Some people seem to think you shouldn’t be here, either,” he says lightly. “Because of Gin Ichimaru.”

Her hands slip into her jacket pockets. “You’ve done your research.”

“That was easy enough,” he says with a careless shrug. “It got enough public coverage in the media. He was a child molester and a murderer. I would have pushed him too.”

“I didn’t push him. And of course you would have,” she retorts. 

“Because I’m an alleged murderer? That’s not nice to say, Rukia.”

“I didn’t push him. He fell.”

Kurosaki smiles slightly. “But how hard did you work to help him off the ledge?”

A cherry pit of nerves settles in her stomach. There’s a calculated sense of knowing in his gaze, something she can’t dissemble and wave away. “He’s in a coma. And he’s a horrible fuck of a human being. I can handle it if he wakes up,” she says coolly. 

“That’s not even the most interesting thing about you,” he calls as she starts to walk away. 

At the edge of the pool of light she stops, wetting her lips. “There’s nothing interesting about me, Kurosaki,” she says at last. 

“Your ex-husband’s a treat, it seems. A cold fish, but perhaps you like that. Or not, considering the ex.”

She turns on her heel and stomps up to Ichigo, grasping the collar of his leather jacket in her fist. “Don’t get wrapped up in me and my personal life,” she hisses. “Exes and family are off-limits.”

Ichigo tilts his throat back, eyes narrowing. “Tit for tat.”

Her grip loosens. Their eyes meet, their mouths too close. She curls her toes in her shoes. “You’re a person of interest.”

“Only to you, I think,” he retorts, leaning in. “Not that I mind you keeping tabs. But you don’t have to be so secretive about it.”

The flush is obvious and too hot on her face. She pulls back, mouth dry. “I may never be able to prove it, but I know,” she says quietly. 

“Isn’t that what everyone says about you, though?” he asks easily, smoothing his broad hands over his jacket. 

For a long moment, in the cold night air, they watch each other. She can feel her skin crawling with nerves and gooseflesh, the feel of his breath on her cheek still lingering. He lingers in a way nothing else has, and there is an understanding in his gaze that she cannot rationalize. 

“Yes,” she says at last, because it’s true. 

Kurosaki smiles slightly, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets as he leans against his motorcycle once more. “Isn’t it just easier to admit it?”

Rukia looks away, out across the nearly empty parking lot onto the bright city skyline. She knows the other detectives, the officers, the higher-ups; she knows they whisper of Ichimaru, of Kaien lost in a shootout she can never fully escape the full weight of on her shoulders. Behind her back they talk and weave tales of her, and all she wants is to be left alone to do her job, do it well. 

And then there’s Aizen, Aizen who haunts her and wants her badge and her gun and hides and devises plans – 

“What did you think of Aizen?” she asks after a long heavy pause. 

“He’s gunning for you,” is the quick answer. 

The pit in her stomach settles, grows roots. “You don’t really know that,” she murmurs, looking at Kurosaki again. 

His eyes are very dark, his mouth set. “He’s not a good guy, I know that much.”

“Unlike you,” she retorts. 

Mouth curling, he tilts his head. “I’m righteous. I believe in justice. I never said anything about being _good_.”

She can’t help the laugh that escapes her. It’s easy to talk to him, to play with him. It shouldn’t be this easy. 

“This is a bad idea, seeing you,” she says after a moment. 

He pushes off his bike and walks towards her, gaze dark. “I don’t think so.”

“You wouldn’t, would you?” she retorts. 

“Because your moral compass is all-moralizing,” he drawls. His hand touches at her elbow. She can feel the warm of his skin through her leather jacket. They match, she thinks distractedly as she looks up. 

“Let me take you home,” he murmurs. 

She shakes her head. “No, no way –“

“Then let me at least drop you off closer to your apartment,” he cuts in, rolling his eyes. His fingers tighten around her elbow. “It’s cold.”

She lets him take her within two blocks of her apartment. When she walks into the empty cold apartment, she can still feel the warmth of his back against her chest, the press of her arms into his middle as he drove his motorcycle through the streets of the city. She thinks she can smell him on her skin, on her sheets. 

*

Rukia is elbow-deep in a muddled and murky drug bust, mishandled badly by Aizen and his team (which is suspicious enough, but Urahara waves it off as one battle at a time), soon after her ride home, when Karin is suddenly at her side, a cell phone outstretched in her hands. 

“Not now,” Rukia murmurs, bent over paperwork and chains of evidence. Her neck aches, her hand is cramping. 

“It’s your ex-husband. He sounds – well – “

Rukia sighs and takes the phone from Karin, putting it to her ear. “Hitsugaya, now isn’t a good time – “

“Did you put him up to it?” Histsugaya all but snarls into her ear. 

She drops her files and sits back in her desk chair, waving off Karin back to Nanao’s side. The girl is green, but learning quickly under both her and Nanao. She’s made of stronger stuff than she looks. 

“What are you talking about?” she asks. 

“Your new boyfriend paid me a visit at work. Said he just wanted to check me out. It was totally uncalled for, especially since we’ve all been handling this well, and he pulled out a knife, Rukia, a _knife_ , and while I don’t think he was going to _use_ it–“

“Wait – my new _what_?” Rukia exclaims. 

The floor shuffles into a strange silence. Gritting her teeth, she shakes her head and ducks into a quiet side corridor off from the main floor, cheeks red. “I don’t have a new boyfriend,” she says evenly. 

“He said – look, I don’t give a shit. Just don’t send people after me, okay? If you’re not happy with the settlement, tell me your damn self,” he says sharply, and hangs up before she can say another word. 

Before she can catch herself, she has her hand curled into a fist and slamming into the metal lockers lining the walls of the corridor. The ache and pain sinks into her bones and knuckles, a reminder. 

“Divorce not going so smoothly, Kuchiki?”

Aizen’s smooth voice crawls up her spine, unwelcome. She turns around, face even, to meet his gaze. 

“It’s fine, thank you. We’re working it out,” she says politely. 

Aizen shrugs, tall and casting a shadow over her. “I saw his new girlfriend. She’s quite the looker.”

“So I’ve heard,” she says dryly, moving to walk past him. 

“Don’t let it get to you,” he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. “After all, Ichimaru is starting to wake up, and you have more important things to worry about.”

Her fingers clench and curl over the cell phone as he leaves her as quickly as he came, chuckling softly to himself. For a moment, she bows her head, her hair falling loose around her throat. There’s a lump in her throat, a sharp heaviness in her stomach she has yet to shake. 

“Rukia?”

Karin’s voice startles her. Rukia looks up and nods, jaw set. “Yes. Come on,” she says, slipping her phone into her pocket for another moment, another time to breathe. 

If the walls are starting to crumble, she can’t let it show.

*

The lock is open to her front door. Rukia sighs, a palm flat on the butt of her gun. She walks in, shaking her head. 

“This is harassment,” she says tiredly, shrugging her coat off and hanging it up near the door. 

Ichigo looks up from his book, glasses perched on his nose. He sits on her couch, large and looming in the small empty space. “Well, you won’t take my calls,” he says, as if he hasn’t broken into her apartment and made himself at home. 

She kicks off her boots and moves into the apartment, into the living room. There is a glass of scotch neat waiting for her on the coffee table. “How did you know?” she drawls, settling into the chair opposite him. 

“Lucky guess,” he murmurs, watching her as she reaches for the glass. 

She can feel the flush rising on her skin under his gaze; the attention is unnerving, startling. Her own husband, when she could still call him that, never looked at her this way. Now, to have it from some strange genius vigilante doctor-murderer ( _alleged_ , she can hear him adding in the back of her mind, _alleged_ ) – it’s overwhelming. 

“You have to stop,” she says after a long sip. The scotch burns nicely on the way down. 

“Stop what?” he asks, turning a page in his book without looking down. 

“Coming here. Following me. Interfering,” she says quietly. “I know you visited Hitsugaya at his office.”

Ichigo shrugs, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I wanted to see what kind of man he was.”

She loosens her braid with the fingers of one hand, her hair curling at her shoulders. Her bangs fall across her eyes as she leans back in her chair. “You pulled out a knife during your meeting.”

“He looked like a man of good taste. It was a collector’s item, and I wanted his opinion,” he says evenly. 

“You’re an idiot,” she says, shaking her head. 

With a small grin, Ichigo wets his lips. “My reasoning stands.”

Her fingers curl around the smooth glass as she sips at the scotch. “What did you think?”

He sets his book aside, stretching an arm over the back of the couch. “Of him?”

“No, of the _knife_ ,” she drawls. 

Then he smiles, sharp and white in the dim light. She feels a shiver run down her spine, curling under her skin. “He’s too serious for you. Also, he’s an idiot.”

“He’s really not,” she says, amused. 

“If he let you go, he is,” he says seriously. 

She laughs, because it’s the only appropriate choice in front of her. Really, she wants to curl her fingers over his wrists, his arms, his chest, her mouth over his. He is the first person to say such a thing, and she believes him. It’s odd, to trust him so innately, even after what she knows he’s done and what he can do. 

If she believed in fate, she’d say that was why. 

“That’s sweet, Ichigo,” she murmurs. 

“How kind of you to say,” he drawls. 

“You do have to stop,” she says after a moment, drawing her fingers along the lip of her glass. 

“I don’t think you mean that,” he says, closing his book and tossing it aside. It slides across the cushion. 

She curves her legs under her as she sits, adjusting her weight on the chair. “You don’t, do you?” 

He watches her, a cool sort of gaze. It’s unnerving, to think of what he could do, what he _has_ done – and yet, she’s unafraid. “No, I don’t.”

“Cocky,” she mutters. 

“Intuitive.”

Wetting her lips, she sips at her scotch. “Whatever you say.”

“You’re going to fall in love with me, Rukia,” he says flatly. 

The scotch swallows down the wrong way, and she chokes a little bit. There’s a burn behind her nose and eyes. “You think so?” she gasps out at last. 

He smirks, and it’s insufferable. She wants to smack it off of his mouth. “Yes.”

“Jesus Christ, Ichigo,” she murmurs, touching her lips. 

He rises and moves to her, gaze dark. “There are some things you just know,” he murmurs, resting his hands on the arms of the chair as he leans over her. His face is very close to hers. She can feel the color rising on her skin. “Gut instincts.”

“Yeah,” she says after a moment. 

It’s then that he leans in and kisses her, soft and easy and light. It’s nearly chaste, the brush of his mouth over hers. Her eyes fall shut and she curls her fingers around her glass of scotch to keep from pulling onto him, bringing him closer. For a moment he breathes against her mouth, his tongue touching her lips, before he pulls back. 

“I knew, from the first moment,” he whispers.

Then, the shadow of him is gone. She opens her eyes to find empty space, the sound of the front door clicking shut. She knows what it means; now, it’s her move, her choice. 

Rukia touches her mouth again, and breathes. She finishes the scotch, and another glass. 

She can still taste him, though. 

*

Urahara shuts the door to his office and flips the shades closed decisively. 

“Am I getting fired?” Rukia asks, a little dryly. 

He says nothing, at first. He pushes a Styrofoam cup of coffee into her empty hands and sits opposite her at his desk, blonde hair falling over his brow. The office is full of a nervous muted hum, has been since she walked in this morning. She doesn’t like the attention, the press of gazes and air on her skin. 

“Ichimaru woke up this morning,” Urahara says at last, after a long horrible pause. 

Rukia’s fingers squeeze around the cup. “Oh,” she says at last, staring at a spot over his shoulder, at the dust motes floating in the spring sunlight creeping in through the blinds. 

“He hasn’t said anything,” he says. “They’re not sure he can. But I wanted you to know.”

Taking a silent deep breath, she straightens and sets the coffee down untouched on his desk. “Anything else, sir?” she asks evenly. 

Urahara shakes his head. “No, guess not. Go do good work,” he murmurs, waving her off. 

Later, standing alone in the corridor near the restrooms, she weighs her cell phone in her palm. 

The floor is slow. The failed drug bust from a week ago lingers with everyone, especially her. She’s sure there was a tip, someone inside – but that’s taking her down a path she’s not sure she’s prepared for, not after Ichimaru and divorce and Ichigo. 

She wants to make a call, talk to _someone_. But really, who does she have?

“I guess you heard the news.”

Aizen’s shadow falls over her and she can feel her body tensing, feel the anger licking at her fingertips and her nerves. 

“I did,” she says at last, voice even. 

“Tough break. Would have been easier if he had just died,” Aizen murmurs, standing in front of her. It feels like a cage, like he’s blocking her exits. 

“Well, now he can stand trial for his crimes,” she says steadily, keeping his gaze. 

Shrugging, Aizen tucks his hands into his pockets. A shock of wavy dark hair falls over his brow. He looks harmless, handsome even; but looks are deceiving, she knows. 

“Or you’ll stand trial for yours,” he murmurs, and there – it’s in the open at last. 

She straightens and tilts her chin up. “No one here is a saint. But I’ve only ever done my job. I don’t think you can say the same,” she says sharply. 

Their eyes meet, and keep the other’s gaze. She doesn’t falter, even as her fingertips curl and the pit in her stomach grows heavier. Aizen watches her, eyes narrowing. She thinks she can see his face changing, the lines sharpening. 

“May the best man win, then,” he says at last before he turns and walks away, casual as he pleases. 

It isn’t until he’s disappeared from the hallway that she sags, that she lets herself breathe as she leans against the wall. The hum of the floor is an echo in her ears, hollow and lost to her. Her instincts are crying out, sharp and hard and heavy on her tongue. 

_I knew, from the first moment._

Within moments, she’s left the building, racing through the streets on foot. 

She knows the way. 

*

The echo of his footsteps is familiar to her now.

“Found me,” he says, amused. 

Rukia looks up from the carpeted hall floor, to the end of the corridor. Hands full of grocery bags, Ichigo lingers near the elevator doors. His tie is loose at his throat, dark against the starched white of his shirt. She wets her lips, curling her fingers into fists. 

“Are you stalking me?” he drawls. 

“Addresses are police-accessible,” she murmurs, leaning against his apartment door. 

She watches as he walks towards her, steady and purposed. It’s hard to fit the man who killed just a few months ago with the man here, in the flesh. He’s all smirks and soft eyes and the stethoscope that she knows hangs around his neck during the day, and she can’t stay away. Opposites attract, she thinks, as he sets his bags down at his feet. The plastic crinkles in her ears. 

Perhaps they aren’t so different after all.

His hands come up to the door, resting just at the edges of her shoulders. He brackets her in, but she doesn’t mind. 

“What do I owe the pleasure?” he asks, eyes amber in the dim hall light. 

“Nothing in particular,” she says softly, the color rising on her bare throat. The lie isn’t a good one, but he lets her have it. Her badge feels heavy on the waist of her jeans. 

Ichigo smiles slightly, taking another step into her. His knees press against hers; her thighs shift and part with the weight, on instinct. His mouth hovers, too close. “I thought you told me to stop.”

She tilts her head up, meeting his gaze. “I did.”

“So?”

“So – so never mind,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Aren’t you a man of action?”

“I am,” he says, eyes fixed on her mouth. His hands drag down the length of the door to her waist, gripping into the leather of her jacket. “I always have been.”

Face hot, she tips her mouth up, grazing his lips. “Prove it,” she says. 

His mouth curls at hers. Easily, he tucks in at her waist and lifts her up against the door, pressing her back. Her thighs shift and tighten around his hips, the heel of her sneaker catching at the jut of hipbone. Mouth ghosting hers, he bares his teeth, sinking them into her bottom lip. 

“There’s no going back,” he says very quietly. 

She shifts against the weight of him against her, heavy and warm and too much and not enough. Her fingers uncurl and slide across his shoulders to the nape of his neck, tangling in the thick give of his hair. 

“I know,” she says, just as steadily. 

He smiles then, soft and small and easy. It’s unfamiliar on his face, but she knows it’s hers. 

“Okay,” he says before he kisses her, mouth parting over hers. 

There’s purpose here, in the give of her mouth and the slide of his tongue. She lets him lift her up against the door, her thighs at his hips and her heel digging into the arch of his back. The drag of her leg across the line of his hip and thigh is heady. He bites at her mouth and sighs, low in the back of his throat. 

Rukia shuts her eyes and breathes. It’s all small increments of change, of growth. She isn’t scared of the darkness. 

*

Eventually, they stumble inside, all groceries and coats and wet open mouths. 

“You should put those away,” she mutters even as his fingers strip her of her shirt, tripping over buttons. Her back hits the solid wood of his bedroom door. The groceries are abandoned to the front hall floor. 

Ichigo hums and takes her words, swallowing them down as he ghosts his mouth over hers. Her fingers sink against the bare skin of his chest, his shirt lost to the floor. 

“I can buy more,” he murmurs, his teeth soft at her bottom lip. He peels her shirt away from her skin and she rolls her shoulders, letting him tug the sleeves from her elbows and wrists. The air is cool on her flushed skin. “I have you here. I’m not letting go.”

There’s a lump in her throat and she can’t, she can’t swallow past. “Stop it, you idiot.”

He slides his palms over the dip of her ribs and waist, the flat of her stomach towards her loose jeans. His fingers play at the badge clipped at her waist. “It took you long enough.”

She leans back against the door. Her eyes watch the rise and fall of his hands as he unclips her badge and sets it on the side table near her hip. It’s a mark of respect, something he doesn’t show for their shirts, her jeans as he tugs them down. He bucks it but he respects the law, and that’s enough for her for now. 

“I know,” she says, and it’s strange, but true. 

Ichigo grins, leans up to catch her mouth with his, his fingertips warm on her cool bare skin. Soon, he has her gathered against him with the wood grooves sinking into the smooth skin of her back, his hands digging into her thighs. He bites at her throat and slides a hand between her thighs as her heels press into the bare skin of his lower back, her legs tightening over his hips. 

“Where’s this from?” he asks against her sternum, his lips moving over the scar there. 

She has one hand wrapped around his hard length, her fingertips sticky. Their wrists brush as he slides a finger inside of her, curling and crooking into slick flesh. The heat spreads and shifts across her skin, sweat dampening the nape of her neck. 

“Car accident,” she murmurs, voice tight. “But you already knew that.”

“Did I?” he teases. 

“You know everything about me,” she breathes as his thumb circles her clit. 

She can feel his mouth turn against her skin, his teeth grazing the ridges of the scar, the beginnings of it at her throat. “Maybe I want you to tell me.”

“Why?” she asks, and it’s nearly a whimper. Her fingers turn against his dick, her thumb teasing at the damp tip, and his chest shudders with the sharp intake of breath. 

He lifts his head, two fingers curled in her and his mouth too close to hers. In the dim light his eyes are nearly gold, dark and heavy. “I like the sound of your voice.”

Color flushes her cheeks. She shuts her eyes and kisses him, too hard and too wet for a true breath. Together they shudder together, as she bites at his bottom lip and he breathes her name, husky and low. She’s guiding him into her as his hand spans her bare stomach and he sighs with it, the pinning of his hips to hers. He leans his brow against hers and grazes his mouth over hers again and again, his hair damp with sweat. She peels at his shoulders and back with her nails, a lump too hard in her throat to swallow past. 

She comes apart under his thumb at her clit and his mouth at her jaw, the rise and fall of her name on his voice a low rhythm in her ear. It’s the first time she feels limp, boneless, at the mercy of someone else’s machinations. 

Still, as he rests her weight on the door and takes her face between his hands, she breathes through it, the loss. It feels like a well-deserved unraveling of the knots throughout her entire body. 

“ _Rukia_ ,” he murmurs before he kisses her, his fingers soft in her hair. 

Shutting her eyes, she curls her fingers into his shoulders and breathes. 

*

“So what changed your mind?” he asks her later. 

Rukia sits on the kitchen counter, one of his starched white button-down shirts loose at her shoulders. She watches as he moves between the sink and the stove, a pot of soup simmering low. Through the glass windows she can see the sun sinking behind the high skyline, the sky blue-purple in dusk. 

“I hadn’t made up my mind either way,” she says at last. 

Ichigo rolls his eyes, stirring the pale broth. “Okay. What made you decide?”

She curls her fingers into the sleeves of his shirt, resting back against the wall-mounted cabinets. “Ichimaru is awake,” she says after a moment. 

“And? He’s a criminal. Nothing he says will make any difference,” he says flatly. 

Biting at the inside of her lip, she watches him carefully. Her heels kick off against the cabinets, legs swinging lightly. “It could be a problem.”

“Do you want my help?” he teases, though his gaze is dark, too serious. “I am a doctor, after all.”

She covers her ears with her hands, glaring at him. “Don’t you _dare_.”

He smirks, incorrigible. Her mouth curls in an answering smile, but she smoothes her hands over her cheeks to hide it. 

“It’s just – I can’t talk to anyone about it,” she says after a moment. “Except – well –“

“I get it,” he says, and it’s as easy as that. 

They rest together in the quiet kitchen for a long spell, her gaze distant through the windows. A lump builds and settles in her throat, too heavy to swallow past. 

“Aizen’s after me,” she says at last. 

Ichigo sets the wooden spoon down, leaning his hip against the counter. Shirtless, he cuts a tall broad figure in the shadowy light. “I know.”

“You _know_?” she repeats. 

“I guessed.”

She sighs, pressing her hands to her temples. “I think – I think he’s gone bad,” she says haltingly. 

“Do you have proof?” he asks. 

She leans back as he moves towards her, his hands spanning her thighs, fingers at the hem of his shirt as it lays flush to her skin. It’s strange, the ease with which she talks to him, about things she could never talk to Hitsugaya about. But then again, she could never keep up with Hitsugaya’s interests and work talk either. 

“Not as such. But there was a failed drug bust a few weeks ago, and we think they were tipped off, and Aizen was in charge – “ she stops, shaking her head. “It’s all smoke and mirrors right now.”

“But your gut,” he says quietly. 

“Yes,” she murmurs. 

He sighs, smoothing his thumbs over the curve of her thigh. “So build your case before he can invent yours.”

“It’s that easy, huh?” she drawls. 

Smiling slightly, he leans into kiss her, teeth sharp at her lip. His fingers slip under the hem of his borrowed shirt to the inside of her thighs. “For you, it will be.”

She laughs, shaking her head. “I couldn’t prove it against you.”

“Well, that’s because there wasn’t anything to prove,” he teases, though his eyes darken. 

Her hands rise and fall to rest on his chest, smoothing across the lines and scars there. “Fisher was a bad man,” she says after a moment, voice soft. 

“Yeah, he was,” Ichigo says quietly. He pulls her closer to the edge of the counter, stepping between her thighs. “It wasn’t just my mother,” he says after a moment. 

She looks up, eyes wide. He isn’t looking at her, his gaze focused on the cabinets behind her. 

“It was my little sister, too. When I was twenty, she disappeared on her way home from the store. We just found pieces of her, in the river,” he says at last, voice even. “She was sixteen.”

Biting her lip, she curls her fingers around the nape of his neck. “Do you think –“

“Don’t know.” 

He takes a deep breath, the tension settling through his shoulders and arms. His hands tighten their grip on her thighs. 

“If I had killed him, it was justified,” he says at last. “Not just because of my mom, and maybe my sister – for all of them.”

Rukia looks up at him, watching the crease of his brow, the turn of his mouth. She thinks of the family lost to her, the drunk driver never found, of Ichimaru’s sharp smile as he dangled by his fingertips, laughing at the women and children and families he had destroyed in his time – 

She thinks of all of this, of the unsteady path she’s looking down now, and thinks Ichigo might be right. 

*

 _Leave it alone_ , she tells him over and over, between the secret hours at his apartment and the interludes on his motorcycle and the quiet dinners of take out and beer in her bed. Rukia has her own plan, her own method for building the case; Ichigo is an unstable element, something she can’t be in control of. She tells him to keep to his patients and the hospital and leave it alone. 

He says he will, but she can’t tell if he’ll really listen or not. He hasn’t yet. 

She spends the next few weeks piecing together moments and cases, stretching her wings under Aizen’s nose, with Karin at her side watching her every move. The divorce papers come and she signs them without a second thought. She even goes out to lunch with Hitsugaya and Orihime, who seems perfectly pleasant and lovely. 

One day, Ichimaru starts speaking; all he will say, over and over, is her name. Any other recovery seems distant, but the higher-ups are concerned, sharply so. The other detectives treat her gingerly when the news spreads, and the press comes hounding once more; Rukia just keeps to herself and her projects, hiding in corridors and the shielded safety of Urahara’s office. 

“If you’re wrong, it’ll be bad,” Nanao says one late night as they sit on the roof of headquarters, sitting on the edge. 

Rukia shrugs, kicking her legs lightly. “I’m not wrong.”

“I don’t think you are,” Nanao says evenly. “But Aizen – he’s been at this a long time. He’ll know you’re onto him.”

“He already does. We’re honest, at least,” Rukia murmurs, pressing her fingers to her throat, the beginnings of the scar there. 

It’s the last time Nanao questions her on it. Every day, she brings her a new stack of Aizen’s old cases, reliant and steady. Karin, who Rukia was sure would balk, is right at their side, combing over each file and detail, helping Rukia piece the puzzle together. 

What comes together at last is striking, and frightening: for years, Aizen has been taking cuts from the drug runners and the mob to turn a blind eye. It’s not often enough to create a large interest, but now, now that she’s looking – she can see it, stretching out for years in the past, longer than since she’s been here. How he could have hid it and deceived them all so well is a tribute to the slick press of his voice, the charm and charisma he exhibits. It took someone like Ichigo to see right through him, pick him apart.

Now, Rukia just needs to wait for the right opportunity.

When she tells Ichigo so, he’s immediately annoyed. 

“You need to do it now,” Ichigo says with his mouth at her knee and his hands sliding over her thighs. 

She shakes her head, burrowing back into the pillows and the sheets. His bed is wide and warm and she digs her fingers into the rumpled sheets as his mouth drags up her bare thigh. His hair brushes at her skin, warm and soft. 

“I don’t have enough –“

“You _do_ ,” he presses with a bite at the inside of her thigh, two fingers circling her clit and then sinking into the wet heat of her. “You’re gun-shy.”

“I’m accusing a seated detective of collaborating with criminals,” she breathes out, her hips pressing into his touch. “I can’t just drop it off with my captain’s afternoon tea.”

Ichigo raises his head slightly, pressing his thumb to her clit. “He’s planning something for you, Rukia,” he says, very serious. His eyes are too dark, his mouth a thin line. 

She bites at her lip, tilting her head back against the pillows. “I told you to leave it alone,” she murmurs through a gasp. 

“I am,” he says, pausing for a beat before she feels the slide of his tongue over her clit and the brush of his hair between her thighs. It’s all the talking they do for a long while, between the one-two slide of his fingers and the curl of his tongue. 

Later, though, as she curls onto her side with her back to his chest, he brushes his mouth near her jaw. “I am leaving it alone. But I think he knows more than you think he does,” he says quietly, his hand flexing and shifting against the flat rise of her stomach. 

Rukia sighs, shaking her head. “Your paranoia is cute.”

“Stop it,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I’m serious.”

“I’m being careful,” she murmurs. 

His arm tightens around her waist, his mouth insistent at her throat. “Good.”

*

She is careful, painfully so; it isn’t enough. 

The dominoes fall, and they fall hard, before she is ready. A tip comes in for a drug run, cocaine, coming in through the docks. Aizen takes it, and she knows – she has to make her move now. 

“Just give me a little time,” she tells Karin as she pauses at the driver’s side door of the dark sedan. 

The younger woman frowns, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t go alone. What if –“

“I can handle Aizen. If he tries anything, I’ll be ready,” she says, brushing her bangs from her eyes. The sun is too bright and hot today, even for early June; the air sticks to her throat thickly. 

Karin is pale, her mouth tight. “It can’t be this easy,” she murmurs. Uniformed officers nod as they pass. 

“You have copies of everything,” Rukia says after a quiet moment, wetting her lips. The parking lot is silent. “If something does happen –“

“I should go too –“

“If something does happen,” Rukia continues, “go straight to Urahara with everything. Nanao will back you up.”

She opens the car door, her fingers curling around the warm metal handle. She looks up at Karin, the weight at her shoulders suddenly too heavy. 

“And call Ichigo Kurosaki,” she adds after a moment. 

Karin’s face twists, eyes widening. “Kurosaki?”

“Only if something happens,” Rukia says, smiling slightly. She nods at Karin before she gets into the car and peels out of the parking lot. 

It is the first time she has driven a car in years. Her hands are steady. 

*

“I’ve been watching you,” Aizen murmurs.

They are alone in the warehouse, cool and humid. The sea breeze is hard and salty in her nose. Rukia stands alone, tense, her mouth tight and her gun easy in her fingertips. The warehouse is empty; it is a trap. 

“Why?” she asks, sweat sliding down the line of her neck. Aizen has always liked to talk; she has to buy time. “Why would you do this?”

Aizen shrugs. He is cruelly casual as he stands between her and the only real exit, other than a two-story drop to the water below, dark hair slicked back. “I knew where the money was, Rukia. It isn’t in police work.”

“Still. Betraying us all? For _money_?” she says sharply. 

“Well, not all of us can be as high and mighty as you are,” he says, smiling slightly. “You and your moral high ground.”

“This isn’t about me,” she grits out, inching back towards the window. 

“Oh, I think it is,” he says, pulling out his own gun. Dust motes float in the air between them, reflecting in the sharp shafts of sunlight. “If you weren’t so righteous, so earnest, we wouldn’t be here at all.”

“I’m trying to do what’s right,” she murmurs. 

“You’re full of shit,” he says sharply. “You all but killed Ichimaru, and now you’re consorting with a person of interest. Your high ground is wearing away, and I’m ready to take care of it entirely.”

A shiver slides down her spine. “A person of interest?”

He smiles, teeth too white. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out about Kurosaki?”

She wets her lips, fingers curling around the butt of her gun. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing yet. But once everything is in place, it’s another sign of your mental decline,” he murmurs. 

At that, she can’t help but laugh. The sound is harsh between them. “My mental decline? That’s your idea?”

He doesn’t say a word, just watches her. Slowly, she backs up to the open window. The lapping of the water against the dock soothes and settles in her ears. 

“It’s more than just an idea, Rukia,” he says at last, smile cutting. “You’ve played right into it.”

“I’m done,” she says sharply. “It’ll take more than a supposition or two to ruin me.”

Silent, he turns around and walks out, his footsteps hollow in the cavernous space. For a moment, her fingers flex at her gun, a temptation. But he disappears, and she is left with trembling knees and a sharp moment of clarity. 

He has his own plans, too. 

*

The phone calls start coming as she drives back to the station pell-mell.

“Ichimaru is dead,” Nanao says, voice grainy over the speaker of her cell phone. 

Rukia swears, fingers tight on the steering wheel. “Shit. Shit.”

“Someone pulled the fire alarm in his hospital wing. He was found smothered. Where are you?”

“On my way back – I am – “

“Aizen is already here, Rukia,” Nanao says, her voice too quiet over the cell phone. “He’s in with Urahara.”

“So what?” Rukia asks, swallowing hard. “What? I shouldn’t come back.”

“Not yet. Not until Karin and I can get in there. He’s going to say you’re responsible. You know that, right?”

“I _wasn’t_ ,” Rukia says as she pulls over to the side of the road. She leans in and presses her forehead to the steering wheel, shutting her eyes. “I wasn’t.”

“I know – but – Jesus, Rukia, you can’t prove where you’ve been,” Nanao says tiredly. “You didn’t – you didn’t tell us where you were going. And we can’t get in there with the circumstantial evidence, and you –“

“I get it,” Rukia breathes, shaking her head. Next to her the cars push by, a hard whoosh in her ears. There’s a hard bitter taste at the back of her throat; it lingers, like the panic she is struggling to push down. “Okay. _Okay_. One of you – you need to keep me up to date. Karin has all the copies –“

“I understand,” Nanao murmurs, and hangs up. 

Rukia leans back in the seat of the sedan, and stares out ahead of her. Clouds, heavy and dark, are rolling in across the sky.

She has to remind herself: she is not afraid of the dark.

*

It all moves too quickly after that. She can’t piece out the hours, the moments. 

She remembers when it started to rain, as she sat in the borrowed police sedan two blocks down from her apartment building, watching as Aizen’s officers filed in one by one. She remembers the buzz of her phone, the number of her old house with Hitsugaya coming up. There were shaky words, a strange bravery eking out of a woman she had only met once. _Don’t come, don’t come, this man is acting very strange and I’m just going to wait for Hitsugaya to get home, but don’t come over Kuchiki-kun –_

And then, screams. 

She goes to the house, of course. It’s instinctual. Night has fallen and the rain is heavy, but the house is warmly lit. There is no forced entry, signifying trust. Rukia walks in, prepared for the worst. 

The blood is everywhere in the kitchen she used to drink her tea in. There are broken pictures, shattered glass, and Orihime, poor lovely Orihime, covered in blood and slashed at the throat and hands and arms. Defensive wounds, Rukia thinks distantly even as she tries to stop the bleeding, tries to do anything. But the sirens, the sirens are coming and it’s all piecing together. This is her break with reality, she thinks. 

In the end, she runs. She needs the time to think, to wash Orihime’s blood from her hands and to plot the next move. Aizen is a step ahead of her on every count; all she can do is hope that her coworkers – her _friends_ will believe her. 

But she needs time, and space. So, she goes where she knows she will be safe. 

*

The lock is easy to pick. She wonders if he likes the open-door of the challenge. 

In the filmy rainy darkness, she moves into the kitchen and scrubs at her hands over and over. There are no tears; she wonders if she’s beyond them, at this point. 

Hitsugaya won’t believe it – not with the amicable separation, the lack of relapse. She will overcome this, she will – 

“The bedroom is the other way.”

She flushes at the throat, hunched over the sink. “I’m not here for that,” she says at last, her hands raw from scalding water and dish soap over and over. 

Ichigo hums and walks over to her. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He’s shirtless, loose pajama bottoms hanging at his hips. “Don’t you ever sleep?” she asks. 

“Bits and pieces. Medical school trained me well.”

“As did your irrational fear of intruders, I imagine,” she drawls. 

He shuts off the faucet, leaning in too close to her. “What happened?” he asks, voice very low. 

She looks down into the sink, mouth pressed tightly together. The red still ribbons with the clear water, reflecting in the stainless steel, or is she imagining it? She can’t tell, can’t tell the press of his breath or hers. The rain sticks to her skin and hair, her jacket slick with it. 

“Aizen killed Orihime. And Ichimaru, I think. But definitely – definitely Orihime,” she says at last. 

Ichigo’s arm settles around her shoulders, dragging her across the edge of the counter towards his chest. She tucks herself into his shoulder on instinct, her cheek pressed to warm bare skin. Her fingers, prune-wrinkled and red, dig into his arms. 

“He’s trying to frame you?” he asks after a moment, his mouth near her damp brow. 

She nods. It’s a relief to hear it out loud in a voice other than hers, spoken by someone even and stable – which is ridiculous because it’s _Ichigo_ but even still, even still. 

“I played right into it,” she says quietly. The guilt is beginning to seep into her, thick at the back of her throat. She can smell the blood, heavy in her nose. 

His hands are broad and easy across her back, keeping her close. “Eh, he’s being laying the groundwork for it quietly. He’s a tricky bastard,” he murmurs. 

“How do you know?” she asks, voice muffled by his shoulder. 

He smiles against her forehead. “I’ve been keeping tabs on him.”

She sighs, shaking her head. “I told you to leave it alone,” she mutters. 

“Focus on the problem at hand, Rukia,” he says. 

“You’re a problem,” she says, leaning back and pressing her hands to her eyes. “I need a plan.”

She shifts away from him, pushing herself up to a seat on the cool granite countertop. Ichigo watches, amused; his eyes are bright in the shadowy light. When she breathes she can smell rain, taste blood. “I need a plan,” she repeats. 

When he steps into her, it’s instinct to part her thighs, to let him crowd close. His hands rest on her waist as he leans his forehead against hers. “I have one.”

“Of course you do,” she sighs. 

“Sleep for an hour or two. You need to rest. Then I’ll tell you, yeah?”

“I can’t sleep,” she murmurs. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Orihime split open on the kitchen floor, blood sharp and red on the white tiles. The pattern is methodical, pointed, organized; she remembers the broken glass under her boots, the death rattle near her ear, the meat cleaver. She had bought that knife set with Hitsugaya, they would know, he would know – 

Ichigo leans in and kisses her, soft and easy. It’s the quietest kiss they’ve shared yet, nothing sharp or pointed or feverish behind it. Her eyes flutter shut and it’s enough, it’s enough to keep her from spiraling into madness. Her mouth parts under his and she curls her hands at the nape of his neck. 

“You need to stop thinking for a minute,” he says against her mouth, his hands stroking along the rise and curve of her waist and ribs. “Sleep for an hour or two. Please.”

She bites at his bottom lip. Her nails sink into his neck, leaving her marks. “Fine,” she murmurs. 

His hands rise to cup her face, his fingers weaving into her hair. She looks up and meets his gaze. 

“We’ll take care of this,” he says, very serious. 

“Okay,” she says after a moment. Her arms settle around his neck. 

It takes nothing at all for him to pick her up off the lip of the counter and carry her to his bedroom. Her eyes shut immediately as she settles against the pillow, the sheets tucked around her shoulders. She can feel the ghost of his mouth across hers before he leaves her alone in the cool darkness. 

Within moments, she is asleep. 

*

The dawn is grey and filmy in her eyes when she wakes. 

“Good. You’re up. Feel better?” Ichigo asks, stretched out next to her on the bed, his hands tucked beneath his head. 

Rukia rubs at her eyes, sitting up. Her jacket sticks and creaks in the corners of her arms and shoulders. “That was not two hours,” she says, thick with sleep. 

“Nah. More like four.”

“Ichigo, I can’t just lounge around,” she says sharply, pulling the sheets off of her. 

His hand fixes itself around her elbow, keeping her in bed. “I’ve got it under control,” he murmurs, eyes half-shut. His mouth is a set line, serious and even. 

She watches him, a flush heavy on her throat. “What did you do?” she asks warily. 

“Nothing yet,” he says lightly. His fingers squeeze around her for a moment before he drops his hand and rises to his feet. “Aizen knows about me, though.”

“How do you know?” she asks, following him out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. 

“Because he’s been spying on you,” Ichigo says, pouring her a cup of coffee. 

She wraps her hands around the warm porcelain mug, bringing the rim to her mouth. The smell is heavy and settling in her nose. “Spying on me?” she repeats, leaning against the kitchen counter. 

“Yes,” he says shortly, swallowing at his own mug of coffee.

“How do you know?”

Ichigo shrugs. “I broke into his house last night. You know, the guy’s living a life too rich for a mere detective.”

“You _broke_ into his _house_?” she repeats, eyes wide. 

He just looks at her, shaking his head. “Focus, Rukia.”

He nods at the kitchen table, where photos and files are spread out in some sort of order. She peers over them. “So that’s me at Hitsugaya’s, months ago,” she murmurs, pointing at one. “Here, I’m on a stakeout with Karin. And this –“

“Is my favorite memory of the last month or so,” he drawls, his mouth very near her ear as he stands behind her. 

The flush is too much on her skin as her eyes trace the shadows of them against the front door of her apartment. His hands are on her thighs and his mouth is over hers, and she doesn’t need a photo to remember it all. 

“How didn’t I notice?” she says, clearing her throat. 

Ichigo’s hand rests at the small of her back, a steadying presence. “You were too busy chasing me.”

“Oh shut up,” she mutters, touching her hand to her brow. “These can’t be his only copies. And he’ll notice them missing.”

“You think he’ll also miss the ten pounds of cocaine he had hidden in his library?” he drawls. 

Her mouth falls open as she stares at him. “Cocaine?”

“Sometimes you are too earnest for your own good,” he murmurs, shaking his head. 

“Ichigo, did you bring it here?” she all but shrieks. 

He laughs, shaking his head. “No, of course not. He’d love that. Stop treating me like a rookie cop.”

She takes a long swallow of her coffee, shaking her head. “Fine. Fine. So we have this. We have cocaine. We need to get our hands on –“

“He’ll come to us,” Ichigo says calmly. His hand palms her hip, fingers sliding under the hem of her shirt to touch bare skin. “We need to get to Hitsugaya.”

“You cannot use this as an excuse to kill my ex-husband,” she murmurs. 

Taking her half-empty mug, he sets it down on the table and takes her face in his hands. “They’ve already brought him in to tell him what happened, to effectively blame you. No matter what Nanao and Karin and Urahara think, Aizen is running this show. We need to get to Hitsugaya and get him on our side.”

She tilts her head up, her hands coming up to clasp his wrists. “What kind of medical training prepared you for covert operations?” she asks dryly. 

He shrugs. “My dad’s motto was that you can never be too ready,” he says, voice serious. It’s a reminder of how much he knows of her, and how little she still knows of him. 

“I’ll get Hitsugaya,” he continues, leaning down to kiss her briefly. “They’ll be coming here soon. You should try and get in touch with Karin or Nanao, see if they can help. Meet me at the docks in two hours.”

For once, she doesn’t protest. 

*

“Shit is going _down_ ,” Karin hisses into her ear. 

Rukia sighs, walking hurriedly through the damp humid streets. Ichigo’s apartment is abandoned behind her. She has the pictures, her gun, all tokens of her being there now on her person. His shirt remains loose on her, flush against the thighs of her jeans. She tucks her cell phone closer to her ear and picks up speed. 

“Aizen’s got your fingerprints on stuff in Ichimaru’s room, and he’s talked to your ex – where _are_ you?” Karin asks.

“Never mind that,” Rukia murmurs, hugging the trees that line the sidewalk as cop cars whiz past her, in the direction of Ichigo’s apartment. “Do you still have the copies of everything?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how long I can hold onto them. Aizen’s watching us like hawks. He wants to put an alert out for you, but Urahara is hedging as best as he can. What are you doing?”

“Building my own case,” Rukia says, flagging down a passing bus as she runs for the stop. “I’m going to try and set up a meeting with Aizen. Once he’s out of the building, grab the copies and get them into Urahara’s hands. Aizen’s got cocaine, and money at his house –“

“How do you _know_ that?”

Rukia bites her lip as she climbs onto the bus and settles in a seat near the back. The extreme heat has finally broken, leaving the city sticky and damp, but temperate. Her hair sticks to her throat. “That doesn’t matter. I just – stay clean, okay? I need you to stay clean.”

“I am,” Karin murmurs, and is quiet for a moment. “Are you all right?”

Taking a deep breath, Rukia glances out the window, past the grey and damp city. “I’m fine. Keep in touch,” she murmurs before she hangs up. The docks are ten minutes away. 

When she arrives, sweaty and temples pounding, Ichigo is waiting, leaning against his motorcycle, Hitsugaya with him. Her heart presses hard into her throat. 

“I didn’t –“ she starts as she stands in front of them. 

“Of course you didn’t,” Hitsugaya says. He sounds tired, looks wrecked and pale. The guilt is there again, creeping over her. She swallows and blinks, staring past their shoulders across the water. “I didn’t – I didn’t think –“

“As great as this understanding is,” Ichigo drawls, “we have some business to attend to.”

Grinning, he tosses her his cell phone. “Call Nanao,” he says. “We need Aizen out in the open and out of headquarters.”

Slowly, her mouth curls. “That’s just what I was about to say.”

Ichigo crosses his arms over his chest, smirking. “Great minds, eh?”

“Shut up,” she mutters, flipping open the phone. 

“So, the knife,” she hears Hitsugaya say to Ichigo in the background.

Ichigo shrugs. “Sorry about that,” he says, not sounding the least bit sorry at all. 

Rolling her eyes, she meets Ichigo’s gaze. Despite everything, she smiles slightly. 

*

Ichigo disappears, presumably to fetch Aizen. How he’s going to pull that off, she doesn’t know. It leaves her and Hitsugaya alone in the empty warehouse at the docks, a different one from the day before. Still, she paces and is mostly silent, watching through the wide open windows as the clouds clear, as afternoon settles. 

“I’m sorry,” she says at last, her back to Hitsugaya. 

“I know,” he says quietly. 

“No,” she murmurs, turning around. “I’m sorry. I provoked him, I did this –“

“Aizen’s a madman. I’ve never liked him. You didn’t kill her. He did,” Hitsugaya says shortly. He sits on the floor against the wall, hands closing into fists. “I just hope your psycho boyfriend knows what he’s doing.”

“He’s not –“ she stops, shaking her head. “It’s complicated.”

“He’s good for you,” he says dryly. “In a way I never was.”

She pulls her hair away from the nape of her neck, sighing. “I should get accused of murder more often,” she murmurs. “Apparently it’s revelatory.”

“Let’s not get too comfortable,” Ichigo calls from behind them. “I’ve brought friends.”

Turning towards the open door, she blinks as Ichigo shoves Aizen into the cavernous space. Behind him are a gang of burly men, led by a tall man with stark black facial tattoos and strange reddish hair. 

“Ichigo, what did you do?” she exclaims as Hitsugaya rises. She can feel the tension radiating off of him as he stares at Aizen. 

Ichigo shrugs, approaching her. “Nothing. They’re old friends from high school who are a rival faction to the drug runners Aizen’s been helping out,” he says casually.

“You’re absolutely insane,” she hisses. 

He slings an arm over her shoulders, pulling her close. “The cops are searching your house right now, thanks to Nanao and Karin,” he tells Aizen. “Bet they’ll find that cocaine. And those photos of Rukia.”

Aizen, crouching in the middle of the floor, barks out a laugh. “That proves nothing,” he snarls. 

“The paper trail you left does, though,” Rukia says quietly, walking forward. 

“And the GPS read on the sedan Rukia was in yesterday,” Ichigo says from behind her. 

“You can’t kill me,” Aizen says sharply, getting to his feet. She can see the blood welling at his split lip, the shadowy bruising at his eye. 

“Who said anything about us killing you?” Ichigo drawls. “Renji’s got plenty of motive and no real morals to speak of.”

“True,” the tattooed man drawls, muscles sharply lined through his shirt as he crosses his arms. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this chance, Aizen.”

“No, we’re just leaving you to your eventual fate,” Ichigo says with a grin. “Though, I did call the cops and tell them where you are. So, I guess it’s a race against time.”

Rukia glances back at Ichigo. “You’re insane,” she says. 

Ichigo opens his mouth to reply, but then she feels a brush at her side, a hand at her holster, and then a click –

“No!” she exclaims, leaping at Hitsugaya as he aims at Aizen. 

“He _killed_ her,” he says flatly, her gun steady in his hands, aimed at Aizen’s forehead. 

She reaches out to touch his arm but he recoils, shaking his head. “He killed her –“

“It was worth it,” Aizen murmurs. “She cried and screamed and was an absolute coward –“

“That isn’t true,” Rukia exclaims, the color flushing her face. “Orihime was brave, she could have asked me to come over but she didn’t, she was brave – “

“Do it,” Aizen says, smiling cruelly. “Be the man you never could be for Rukia –“

Dread settles heavily into her stomach. She pushes off her heel just as Hitsugaya fires, pushing him down to the ground. The gun clatters dully to the dusty wooden floor and there are shouts as she tumbles and rolls. She can hear footsteps, smell blood, and then it’s Aizen with the gun in his hand, pointing it at her. Hitsugaya is beyond her and Ichigo, Ichigo is tense and taut, his gang friends behind them all – 

“How the tables do turn,” Aizen murmurs, crouching next to her. The warm barrel of the gun grazes her jaw. 

She can’t find Ichigo in her line of sight, even as Renji and his companions pull their weapons. Sirens are distant in her ears. “How would you spin this?” she asks Aizen, as she crawls back. 

His hand grasps her elbow, hauling her back towards him. Her gun is pressed to her temple, his mouth near her cheek. “You and your friends kidnapped me. Set me up. I’m always two steps ahead of you, Rukia,” he breathes. 

“I doubt that,” comes Ichigo’s voice from directly behind Aizen, cold and dark. 

There is a crack; blood lands warm and thick on her cheek. Aizen’s eyes roll back into his head as he collapses to the ground. Her fingers latch around her abandoned gun as Ichigo sets the wooden plank down and hauls her to her feet. The corner of the wood is wet with blood. 

“He talks too much,” Ichigo says evenly, his hands hard on her elbow. 

A headache rolls and grows at her temples. She looks at Hitsugaya, at Renji and the other gang members, and then finally at Ichigo. “What now?” she asks as the sirens get louder. 

Ichigo glances at Renji. “Get out of here before they get here. You’ll get your chance while he’s in prison,” he says coolly. 

In the end, as Renji and his men retreat, Ichigo takes Hitsugaya and leaves her alone, pressing the wooden plank into her hands and putting her gun in Aizen’s fingertips. 

“Self defense,” he murmurs, leaning into kiss her. She can taste the salt and sweat of him on his lips. “I’ll be waiting.”

They leave, and she is alone. Her phone is buzzing, and she can hear Nanao and Karin and Urahara calling for her outside the warehouse. The sea breeze is steadying and cool, ruffling the loose fall of Ichigo’s shirt against her body. 

Rukia kneels in the dust, and breathes. 

*

It isn’t until the next night that they let her go, cleared of all charges. Aizen’s careful plans fall apart with the arrest of an accomplice at Ichimaru’s hospital; with the drugs and the surveillance and the paper trail brought forth by Karin and Nanao, and the GPS coordinates of Rukia’s sedan during Orihime’s murder, it’s enough to send him to prison and let her go free. 

Still, when Urahara pulls her into his office before she leaves under the cover of darkness, she knows what’s coming. 

“The higher-ups want an internal investigation,” he says as she stands near the door. Her badge is heavy at her hip. She’s been in Ichigo’s shirt for over a day now; it still smells like him. “I’ve tried to tell them no, but –“

“I think I might want to resign,” she says, cutting him off. “I don’t know. But I need – I need a vacation, for sure.”

Urahara raises his eyebrows, leaning back in his chair behind his desk. He looks tired, as they all do. The press is starting to swarm and she can’t bear the thought of going outside, of going back to a ransacked apartment and having so little to show for a life she’s fought too hard for. 

“That’s up to you, Kuchiki. I’d hate to lose you.”

She snorts, brushing the hair from her eyes. “Let them have their internal investigation. But I need time off . I’m going to a funeral tomorrow. Then maybe away.”

He tells her she can make up her mind after the investigation, after her vacation; she wonders if it’s all just a formality at this point, really. 

She leaves the office and the station, exhausted and wondering. Nanao and Karin are long sent home, and she is alone in the parking lot, breathing slowly and softly in the cool night air. The humidity has broken, and she feels as if it is a weight off her shoulders. She holds her badge in her palm as she stands near the pool of yellow street light, tracing the metal and leather. 

“Yo.”

A smile cracks at her mouth. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she murmurs, glancing up. 

Ichigo approaches, shadows edging his face, hands tucked into his jeans pockets. “I told you I’d be waiting.”

“Hitsugaya?” she asks. 

“Safe and sound. Don’t you trust me?” he drawls.

She shakes her head. “Where’s the bike?”

He nods behind him, into the darkness of the parking lot. “You okay?”

Rukia sighs, glancing from him to the badge and back again. “This isn’t what I signed up for,” she murmurs. 

His hands cover hers, closing them over the badge. “Life usually isn’t,” he says. 

“That’s poetic,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. 

He leans down and kisses her, soft and easy. It’s simple, she thinks. Perhaps the simplest thing she has right now, when it really shouldn’t be. 

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he says. “So come home.”

“Home, huh?” she says quietly. 

His smile presses against her mouth. “Yeah.”

Rukia shuts her eyes and kisses him briefly before she takes his hand and leads him to the motorcycle. She slips her badge into her back pocket, his gaze heavy on her as she does. 

It’s enough for now. Maybe forever, but surely for now. 

*


End file.
